Part 1
NANTUCKET WINDOWS
BY
Edwina Stanton Babcock
Author of “Greek Wayfarers,” “The Flying Parliament,” etc.
The Inquirer and Mirror Press Nantucket Island, Mass. 1924
Copyright, 1924, Edwina Stanton Babcock
TO ANNIE BARKER FOLGER
By whose fireside an Off-Islander first learned to love the charm and grace of Nantucket hospitality
Appreciation is expressed to The National Magazine, the Nantucket Historical Society Bulletin, the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, and other publications, for permission to reprint some of these verses
CONTENTS
Page
Nantucket Windows 9
Dock Drama 10
Ghost House 11
Song of Scarlet 14
Path Maker (to Maria Mitchell) 15
Prophecy Made Going “Down Along” 16
Coast Yarn 17
Bouncing Bet 19
To the “Nineties” 21
Structures 23
Psychoscience 25
Beacon Lights 26
Wheel 27
Nantucketer in France 29
Fishing on Steamboat Wharf 31
The Wallace Daisy Field 33
Youth and the Old Mill 34
Scissors Grinder 39
Whispers 41
Not the Gift but the Giver 43
The Ball 44
The Town Clock Gives Advice to The Tourist 46
Cup 50
To Abram Quary (The Last Indian on Nantucket) 51
3 A. M. 53
On the Jetty 54
Windrow 55
The Swimmer 56
In the Antique Shop 57
The Cardinal Flower 58
Wild Bird 59
Sabatia Pond 61
The Lost Dryad 62
Pattran 64
Roof Tree 65
Evening at Franklin Valley Farm 66
Vision 69
Lost Beauty 70
The Branch of Strange Berries (An Old Man tells a Story to some Boys) 71
From a Window 76
Responsible 77
Tree Worship 79
Another Chance 81
Dark Minstrels 83
The People of Today to the Clergy of Today 84
Protagonist 85
Signal Fires 86
Martyr 87
Ballad of the Thorn Tree 88
Balloons on the Beach 89
They Pass 90
On the Beach 91
Saul’s Hills 92
Sea Measure 111
In An Old Burying Ground 112
Christmas Eve on Nantucket 114
Song of the Lightships (A Landlubber’s Chantey) 116
September Noon 118
Main Street by Moonlight 119
Psalm of Imagined Hunger 121
The Moon Canoe 123
Deprecation 124
NANTUCKET WINDOWS
Out on the night they glimmer, Island houses, Casements of orange lustre on the moors; Dune-hidden panes where winter sea carouses Shine on the roads that wind past farmhouse doors.
The Island windows gleam, and all the sorrow Of human life is lanterned into Dream; The fishers’ huts are splashed, the grey shacks borrow Red from the sun and weltered moonlight gleam.
Out on the dark, gold patches on the stable, Light-stippled wharves; ruby and malachite; Sharp, slanting roofs with witchlike peak and gable, Plaqued in warm squares of ruddy window light.
Thin blocks of amber in the misty weather, Oblongs of white translucence on the down; Dim, tawny lights beyond pine hidden heather, Clear coastward lights fringing the steepled town.
The grey owl flaps across the heaving hollow, The chimneyed house sinks in the commons’ wave; The cottage lights a hundred starlights follow, The Island windows shine ... the road is brave!
DOCK DRAMA
Limp in his chair atilt against a shack An old man broods o’er newspaper and smoke Where shingle-quilted pent roofs back to back Checker from grey of ash to black of coke; Dim squares of window, opal-paned, baroque, Waver on water, pearling it to deep Weedwafted droop of shifting shadow cloak Where swirls of silver imagery sweep. Slow ribboning to the surface serpent rings Of mast reflections quiver into grey Upon the incoming tide that softly brings One high-peaked sail along the buoyant way Where questing water tentatively steals Fingering mossy spiles and undulant keels.
The steam boat dock’s a stage where nightly speak The actors in some ribald skit of Trade Here serried barrels screen a jester’s freak And piles of trunks made pirate ambuscade. Red lanterns slackly swung and lights of jade Accent accordions’ pert canzonette; Or furry trawls along the string piece laid Trip oil-skinned fisherman’s hulking silhouette. A massive barge like enigmatic tomb Toward a sea-scented land of dark drifts down; Dim on the East the sandy headlands loom Till dawn rings up green trees and steepled town. Then like applause in broken scattering sound The motor boats speed to the clamming ground.
GHOST HOUSE.
I had always felt contented about that ghost, There in her vine-shrouded house aside of the road; I knew that the rag-stuffed panes were her special boast, That she liked the tumble-down chimney of her abode; She liked that old hat that hung in the tree in the lane, And the scarecrow leaves that dribbled around in the rain; The ivy that muffled the sills, a ghost would adore, And she revelled in cobwebs the twisted staircase wore.
“The dear, mild thing,” I thought, “she’s the only one In this glittering, piece-work world that can run a home; No wonder the birds to her leaf-hung windows come, No wonder the black mole tunnels the garden loam; And there is revelry under her knotted boards Where wild kittens hide and the grey squirrels rattle their hoards.”
But some eager, figeting, worldlings came one day, Moved into the house on a heavenly morning in May; Of course the ghost could do nothing but move away.... Lord, the cutting and hammering, planing and scrubbing and suds, Lord, the paint and the polish, the grates and the curtains and duds!
The new-new beds, the cleanness and trimness and all, I looked for the ghost in the mirror that shone in the hall; I looked for her round the curve of the varnished stair, I searched and called for her, wistfully, everywhere....
“And what will you do, dear ghost,” was my whispered cry, “And where will you live your shadowed revery? Where do ghosts go when no longer they have a home, Do they pile their effects in a van and begin to roam? Shall you take to a haystack or sleep in the church’s dome?”
Whether she heard me and thought it could not be true, Or guessed that she might not trust me, the ghost made no ado; Though the pale grey thing may really have cared that I knew, At all events, she moved ... and her shadowy store Of belongings exists for the world no more....
That house by the road, more correct, I think, than most, Has lost its chief charm.... It no longer has a ghost.
SONG OF SCARLET.
The black-alder berries are thick this year, (It’s going to be cold); Their scarlet trinkets, their necklaces bold Hang on the shivering wind-swept year, (It’s going to be cold).
Now, the Commons are bare and the leaves whirl around, (It’s going to be cold); Like little brown sparrows flicked over the around (It’s going to be cold); But the black alder-berries like rubies embeaded String out on the heath where the milkweed has seeded, (It’s going to be cold).
Now the wind feels the blind and the roads look severe, (It’s going to be cold); And the locust tree’s horned pods rattle and shake, And the small bony branches grow brittle and break ... But vitality lingers in reindeer moss, And near the holm holly the thorn-berries toss, The bright alder-berries gleam saucy and bold, Pile up your wood-fires--who cares if it’s cold?
PATHMAKER
(To Maria Mitchell)
In those eyes, dark as pools, the morning star Must have lain long; on that calm breadth of brow Must have been set some nobleness of vow To distance and to space and all things far. A little narrow street enshrines her now, But through the world her planet pathways are Blazed with her name; the constellate gates un-pbar To those who, following, her star-cairns know. Woman, who walked with Science to mark the lights Along dark ways, thy luminous steps are dim; Rapt on ethereal roads of satellites: Art gazing still through space beyond the brim Of sparkling nebula meadows to the nights Of some New Radiance o’er still farther Rim?
PROPHECY MADE GOING “DOWN ALONG.”
Don’t tell, but I think there’s a miracle today; The Old North Church is full of Western light, And the bush near by is afire; very bright Shine the windows in the tower, for the last half hour Some starlings have ranged there whistling and calling, The barometer is falling, It’s Underground Moon this week, you know; (Don’t tell anybody I said so, But I think there’s a miracle today.) Somewhere on the Island something’s going to happen; Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything about it. Whatever I say I’d just as lief shout it, (But there’s going to be a miracle today!) If there’s any pass at all a-going your way, Better say (There’s going to be a miracle today.) Don’t tell them who said so--they wouldn’t like it, hey? (But there’s going to be a miracle today!) I know it for sure, for I’ve stood for one hour Watching those starlings in the North Church Tower. So if you want a gam, It’s sure I am That there’s going to be a miracle today. So that’s the drift, Though maybe they’ll be miffed-- “He hasn’t got the run of it,” they’ll say, But--there’s going to be a miracle today!
COAST YARN.
Skies pebbled with stars, Sea, breathing like a sleeping animal, Wind nuzzling wet shagginess of moors. The coarse bright strains of an accordion, Perversely stretched and shrunken Against a wall of dark.
Brown faces, high cheekbones, Polyglot sea-words; A cold, dark swiftness; Hardness of diligence For shrewd, tight-fisted gain.
The Cranberry Pickers dance gravely In squalid shacks on the moors, And the greasy bottles pass From old lips to young; Rough doorways blurt out light; White teeth, dark eyes shine.
There is chattering wharf talk And garbled dock yard French; Clamdiggers, Scallopers, Fondle their dirty rolls Of smoky dollar bills And stride in booted ease.
Out of the moorland night She, saucily, slips in, Thistledown on her hair; Little, slim, ear-ringed, scarlet-bloused, Her feet and impertinent breasts four mischievous mongrel words In a universal language; Her mouth gleams like berries, Swamp-light in her eyes--
Someone clasps, someone curses-- Then screams; a knife.... The sea, like an animal panting; The sands, scared and white, Broken barrels of cranberries Strewn like unholy rosaries; A man, stripped and bleeding, Thrown overboard at midnight Where the tide runs strong.
On a small brown neck A long gold chain To match new earrings!
BOUNCING BET.
Sauntering narrow lanes Led by the weather vanes See beneath narrow panes Nantucket gardens Where little fruit trees lean On old walls grey and green Dappling ivies screen Nantucket Gardens.
All that is best and fair Like old scent lingers there Shrubs, herbs and ramblers share The sweet disorders; Tall tapered holly hocks Foxglove and purple phlox Demure mints, frilly stocks Spike the box borders.
Yet--past the rose hung doors Called by the tangled moors Bouncing Bet left them. On new strange roadways bound Was the career she found When she bereft them.
Ragged pink wilful thing-- You had to have your fling With weeds to roister You could not breathe the air Of mignonette, nor care For sweet peas cloister.
Only, these have a name Theirs is the garden fame They are traditioned; Out on the dusty ways Bouncing Bet weary strays Quite ill-conditioned.
Yet I have heard the cry Go up from passers-by, Young, therefore tragic _Escaped_--the little word To them is not absurd They know its magic!
Therefore dear Bouncing Bet You may have honor yet Yours may be winning But in your saucy pride Though you would not abide Gates, gardens, walls, beside; Were your beginning.
TO THE NINETIES.
On Sundays when the church bells ring Their island-towered summoning I see the Nineties go Gravely around the narrow cornered way As they have gone for many a changing day Steady and slow.
At twilight before window lights are lit I see them, whitehaired, backward musing, sit Beside their narrow pane And then to me who wander through the streets The new life with their olden living meets And they are young again.
And always, by the great hearth’s roaring fire Or in the spring-lit street, or by the door I hear their sober speech, with them live o’er Old days, see the stiff backs that bow Under the life so hard upon them now; Yet frugal, busy, gathering up the Past For memories that serve them to the last Binding their faggots slow Of what they know.
If e’er the turbulent world can settle down to live If e’er we learn to suffer and forgive To work hard with few pleasures and great faiths We shall invoke these tottering, smiling wraiths And we shall smile and whisper softly “true It was the Old, who knew.”
Note. One year when summer residents returned to Nantucket they were informed that there had been “a great falling off among the nineties” that winter; and it was noted that much vivacity and charm had gone from the island social gatherings.
STRUCTURES.
They have taken the old houses, Lovingly they have taken them; Bound up their wounds, bandaged their aching sides, Made them soft friendships of pretty paint And kindnesses of mortar.... They’ve made little paths this way And little paths that way And cosseted and crooned and coaxed and cared, Till the old houses, the very old houses, Stand up quite proudly with a dear and ancient pride. All day long--all day long they meditate, In spite of all the pretty paints; In spite of all their mended ceilings, do they meditate On the old houses, the very old houses That they were when they died.
And so I suppose with the old ideas, Rickety old ideas, Heart-broken shapes that stand in field and sky; Cleverly we re-paint them, Cleverly decorate and give them quite new hinges, And open them up and brick them in and hold them, All that is good in them, away from ruin....
Yet, all year long the old ideas are walking, All year long the old ideas are talking, Talking through our every act and glance, In spite of all our efforts to be new and useful, In spite of all our efforts, we go acting By the rickety old ideas, The shapeless, bulged ideas, The mildewed, damp ideas That have died.
PSYCHOSCIENCE.
He, who is far from home, knows when the snow Gives way before the sunny urge of Spring, When the first ecstasies of bluebirds go Through blossomed loops and boughs bee-murmuring, When brier roses starrily compose Upon the scented spray--he, homesick, knows.
He, that is far from love, knows when the face That knew his face is raised to summer stars; He, like that other, hungers in his place, And, like that other, grips his prison bars-- And when that upturned face can no more smile, He knows; and whispers comfort, mile on mile.
He, who feels far from God, knows when the Word Comes light upon a golden-shadowed hill; On his dim path the radiance has stirred, Deep in a dream he shrines his knowledge; still Keeping his thorny ways, intent he goes, Knowing the Hidden that infinitely knows!
BEACON LIGHTS.
When I am cowardly, sick of the fight, Dumb for the right word, nerveless for deeds that dare, Blaze up in my heart, square little Brant Point Light; Light me a broad path starred with a burnished flare!
If I am tossing on a sea of doubt, And have no harbor, no fair shore to know, Sankaty, like an angel, spread your great wings out, Headland and coastward light, give me your glow!
If I am lost and waves go over me, Tossing, engulfing hollows o’er my head; Thou, Great Point Light, will surely cover me, And by thy strong white clue I shall be led!
When I am caught in foam of treacherous beach, And all the darkness presses like a wall, Blaze, Island lights, beyond the Island reach; Beacon me to the Utmost Light of all!
WHEEL.
The growing’s finished. Down the garden ways The Gardener comes, slow-trundling his barrow.
He brings a load of curious loamy mulch, Brings tools that cut and stab the earth, That lop the boughs from off full-blooded trees.
Under the falling leaves the Gardener stands, Unshocked to see the tulip and the rose, Red haw, brown seed-pod, lily staff and leaf-- All lying dead, extinguished, passionless.
The Gardener smiles to see the adventurous bee Lying cold-killed under a broken stalk; Smiles on a battered moth with frosted wing.
He spreads black clods of compost on the beds, Sifts ashes all around the roots of trees, Lops off, cuts back, prunes, digs away and kills.
Knowing how, out of the ruin and wreck, Pure glowing things will come; new winged forms, Trees that shall say new things to listening souls.
O Unseen Gardener of the World-tree, boughs Ripe with strange star-fruit dropping in the fields Of vast Space-gardens--give, Thou, me to learn In simple ways, how, after this life’s dream I may accept new growth, even to loss Of this life-consciousness--to help Thy plan!
Become, for Thee, a dried-up flower cup, A butterfly unwingéd, broken-plumed, Even a blinded, helpless, light-killed moth-- So that I nourish forth new growing things In the star branchéd garden of deep Time!
Grant that this brain, that dares to dream of Thee, As Father, Friend--taught of the sentient flowers, Shall dream--dream on to some far endless end!
NANTUCKETER IN FRANCE.
They would take the hill next day--the order, he knew, And the kind of hell the “taking” would be, he had seen; So he spent the night awake and the hours flew, As he pondered on the sort of man he had been, And wondered what dying and doing it bravely would mean. “_The Eighty-second’s coming along tonight!_” He remembered then. There were men in that regiment knew His Island home. Men that were going to fight For the moors he loved and the pines where arbutus grew. Well--he thought he would like to pass them a word or two.
He thought he would like to see them, to talk of the hill By Polpis Harbor, the grey little farm roofs slant; Of the way the sunset flared through the fans of the Mill, And the rolling moorland hiding the plover and brant, And the scallopers sailing their boats through Autumnal chill.
He thought he would like to talk of the gilded dome Of the Unitarian Church, of the cobbled square; And speak with others sea-faring names of home, Wondering, “Do they hear of the fighting there Where Sankaty Light stands guard with its solemn flare?”
So he stood all night, on those dark hours of the earth, Calling to men slogging by to heroic ends, [A]Shouting: “_Nantucket_,” little grey town of his birth; Palely he stood there, anxious as one who sends S. O. S. scanning the night for friends.
“_Nantucket!_” he hailed--but the river of men rolled by, Every eye set grim towards its Mecca of bloody drench; No answering Island voice took up his cry But his own soul answered. He went back to his trench Resolving how a Nantucket man would die!
[A] A true incident.
FISHING ON STEAMBOAT WHARF.
High all our prisons, We can no more out; Words meant to free us, Compass us about; And a sigh means a laugh And a hymn a battle shout.
But here silence mellows Starved being into life; With these dreamy fellows-- Rod, reel and jack-knife-- Even the caught fish are blithe.
Green water laps the spiles, The silence is golden; Every little whiles I am beholden To a sea captain Of a time olden.
He puts on the bait Of quahog, that gets me A bright little flipper, Or a plaice fish nets me; That I’ll haul in a whale He occasionally bets me.
Silence and fishing, Sun, understanding; Fun to see off-islanders Tack in and miss their landing. Quiet winks exchanged While tobacco you’re handing.
No boasting here, No meanness with minnows; Commonwealth of Bait Debts only finn-owes; And a great quiet kindness And much color blindness.
Maybe it comes from Looking down so deep, Where much is hidden And much lies asleep; With your eyes on the line, Given you to keep.
Quiet pipes lit, Quiet eyes reflective, Rips a silver fish From out the perspective; To go fishing on the wharf Is my one great Objective!
THE WALLACE DAISY FIELD.
Slim pointed pickets guard the summer dream, Glimpsing behind their lichen-scrolléd bars; Young shapes of white that in ethereal stream Toss starry incense to the summer stars. Ranked slender acolytes in harbor lane, Communion bear to many a churchless breast; Processional in falling summer rain, Recessional to gold and Gothic West.
Only a daisy field--yet one man’s care Enshrines it in immaculate gated reach; Inviolate flowers veil them mistily there, Spreading like moonlight to the moonlit beach ... Where the white patens disk the tabled green Is read the sacred Word of sea and skies; Chapelled within this occult daisy screen Is Sacrament for beauty-loving eyes.
YOUTH AND THE OLD MILL.
YOUTH
Old Mill, grind me corn For my house by the thorn, For I’m with the old folk, Where the pigs in the poke And the cows in the barn And the peat’s on the stone And the latchstring out-thrown.... Old Mill, grind me corn For the winter morn.
OLD MILL
No grain can I grind thee, Modern Child, My sails are tattered, My grind stones scattered; My cranks are riddled With rust defiled ... But I’ll turn you a dream, A Grey-Town dream, At which many have smiled And been beguiled.
YOUTH
Turn me a dream then, doughty Mill, Flaring there on your windy hill With your rickety arms spread on the sky; Black crows from the cornfields passing you by, Near the burying-ground where the Quakers sleep, And the sailors home from the ranging deep Turn me a dream, you strange old Mill, Keeping your watch on the windy hill.
OLD MILL
Shall I turn you a dream of the Town Crier calling His news ’gainst the tempest bawling? Shall I turn you a dream of Three Vikings sailing The rim of a low lying island hailing ...? Turn you a dream of a Smuggler grim And the underground path for his mates and him? Of Three forms walking a midnight road To a lonely farmhouse where one light showed And a paper signed with a white quill pen That helped bring freedom to slave-born men? Of a man who made a telescope And lassoed the stars with a mental rope-- Of the woman who worked in a cottage small, Whose name in science leads them all? Of a knight who came and built a school? Of a woman who broke a cast iron rule? Of the Quaker forms and the gentle ways That ruled all war out of the ways? Of the Indians, watching the sun go down? Of the whalers and gold seekers of renown?
YOUTH
Nay, Old Mill, I laugh in your face; Turn me no dream of a Quaker past, Turn me no dream of the tranquil ways, Turn me a dream for my own tense days, Turn me a dream for my cherishing-- A dream for believing; A dream for my strength!
OLD MILL
Shall I turn you a dream for your loneliness? A dream of the star-scattered faces about you, And the plans and pleasures and pains that flout you? Shall I tell of the voices that you must hear Before some one Voice calls you clear? (But whatever it be--for joy and sadness Or triumph, defeat, or grief or gladness-- That I cannot know, Said the Old Mill very low.)
YOUTH
Nay, Old Mill, if you know the voices That make for a bold life’s chance and choices, Turn me that dream!
OLD MILL